Switched-mode power converters are widely used in automotive, industrial, consumer electronics or information technology (IT) applications for converting an input voltage into an output voltage received by a load. In many applications, such as CPU (Central Processing Unit) powering applications, it is required to generate an output voltage with a relatively low level from an input voltage having a higher voltage level.
One important issue in the design of power converters is the reduction of power losses. One promising converter topology is a multi-phase converter topology with a plurality of converter stages (converter cells) each having a cell input and a cell output, wherein each converter cell receives as a cell input voltage a share of an overall input voltage of the power converter, and wherein the cell outputs are configured to be connected in parallel.
It is desirable to further reduce the power losses in this type of multi-phase power converter.